


Don't Get Closer

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [21]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 21:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14029098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: “I don’t deserve it.” Caleb echoes himself, and Molly shakes his head,“Even though I have arguments, this is something thatIwant. Do I deserve this?”





	Don't Get Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely inspired by [Don't Get Closer by Bry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex6VdMcIyro) <33

Caleb trudges, half-asleep, to the door of the room he shares with Nott. The goblin is snoring gently on her bed, not to awaken until morning, exhaustion and alcohol gnawing and feeding on her like she’s trail mix, scattered.   
He opens the door.   
Molly is halfway through fluffing his hair, his hands drop the second Caleb cracks the door and peeks out, cautious, too much so. Molly stops dead, turns, beams.   
“We’re going out.” He tells Caleb.   
The door opens a little wider, Caleb is stripped down to his pants and only that, he was almost ready to sleep. Molly eyes him, his breath catches, he just keeps falling further, he’s so fucked.   
“Out?” Caleb asks, and “No, wait-” As Molly makes to step in.   
“Sorry. Nott?” Molly asks, and Caleb takes a second to reply as he kneels by the door and gestures with one hand, a couple of words.   
“No, Alarm.” He replies breezily, and steps aside, “But do be quiet.”   
Molly’s voice drops low, volume and octave,   
“I don’t think  _ anything  _ could wake her up.” His eyebrows raise, Caleb fights the flush.   
Molly moves through and sits on the end of Caleb’s bed, crosses one knee over the other and sits prim, hands folded in his lap. He watches intently as Caleb fusses around, finds his shirt. Frumpkin, at the end of Caleb’s bed, wakes and mewls quietly, bumps into Molly.   
“Oh, he’s back.” Molly scritches at the cat’s ears, and is shocked as Caleb shivers with the cat’s purr.   
“ _ Ja _ , that is why I am still awake, and why the room smells like lavender and rosemary as opposed to stale beer.”   
Molly sniffs. Caleb is accurate.    
He tugs his boots on huffily, straps them up. He looks at his coat, briefly, and shrugs the thought off- he cares too much for it to worry about it if Molly is taking him along something dumb and messy. He knows Molly, and it’s entirely possible.   
_ He knows Molly _ .   
That’s a lie; he knows jack fucking shit, but he makes the assumption and hopes it’s accurate. Molly is busy fussing Frumpkin, taking the attention languid, hungrily. Caleb crosses his arms and clears his throat.   
“Oh, ready?” Molly asks, turning from Frumpkin, who settles back to sleep at a wordless command from Caleb.   
“It looks like it.” And he watches Molly stand and stretch himself sideways, the perfect view of the peacock as it creeps down his neck. Caleb’s hunger blossoms in the pit of his stomach, he wants to know what it would feel like to run his fingers down the tattoo, wants to know the story behind each and every patch of ink.   
There are other things he wants to know, too, purely for research’s sake.    
The way that Molly would taste on his lips is top of the list. How he would react to a touch, a kiss, a brush of that  _ very _ tempting collarbone is another.   
Molly offers Caleb his hand, and Caleb takes it without thinking consciously, Molly leads him away to wonderland.

It’s a tavern a street away, still within range if Caleb needs to utilise Frumpkin’s bond with him, far enough to forget the rest of their friends for a bit. Even at this late hour, the tavern is bustling and popular, Molly sits across from Caleb at a small table and slides him a drink.   
“So,” Caleb drawls, “You pulled me from my cat, my books, and my room, for… a social visit.”   
“More to talk about  _ recent events _ .” There’s an emptiness, a threat to Molly’s smile, but the warmth in his eyes is that of concern, and when he lays his hand over Caleb’s on the table it’s genuine affection.   
“Mollymauk, I can’t…”   
“I know about Jester, and the money.” Molly tells him, brief, like he’s stating the time of day, or the weather. Caleb watches the first crack in the ceramic smile mask. “I accused you of something that I didn’t know enough about, and didn’t give you enough of a chance to reply before I walked off.”   
Caleb twists his hand under Molly’s until his fingers can slip around and hold him. Molly’s thumb brushes Caleb’s bare wrist, his bandages abandoned back at the inn, Caleb shudders. It’s an unspoken intimacy, and trust, to him at least. A vulnerable place, Molly’s tiefling nails are sharp enough that a quick, decisive motion could kill Caleb. The pad of Mollymauk’s thumb strokes over a shadow of a vein.    
Caleb forgets he was supposed to speak. Molly watches, enthralled, at the way Caleb reacts and moves, his eyes trained on Molly’s thumb, visibly holding back his shivers and his pupils blown wide with the excitement of it all. It’s incredible, endearing, Molly loves it.    
Caleb shocks himself suddenly back to the present,   
“Sorry, what did you say?”   
“I was apologising.” Molly has stayed on track, just pressed pause, “For misjudging you.”   
“You don’t have to.” Caleb tells him, he squeezes, and it takes all of his hurting, aching heart to pull back. He’s guilty, he deserves none of this, he can never earn back the right to be loved.   
Molly seems just as hurt by Caleb pulling away as Caleb is by doing it, he aches, they both ache.   
“Caleb, are you okay?”   
“This isn’t all, is it?”   
Molly hesitates,   
“No. I want to ask about, about Alfield.”   
Caleb knows what he means.   
“I want to ask about that, too, actually. Aside from Yasha, you haven’t shown that kind of, of care, gentleness to anyone else. Why me?”   
“You needed me.” Molly cocks his head, there’s more he can’t explain, it’s been a week and he’s fuck-deep in love with this squishy wizard. It’s not something vocalised easily.   
Caleb’s eyes are full of old hurt when he meets Molly’s.   
“I don’t deserve, any of this, Mollymauk, I have hurt people.”   
“You’re not talking about the priest?” Molly leans over the table a little. Caleb shakes his head,   
“A long, a long time ago, I, I, I hurt someone I cared about, innocent people, I should have died with them.”   
The last bit is bitter-spat, Caleb’s face crinkles like he’s about to cry, Molly slips his hand across the table again.   
“I’d like you to hold my hand.”   
Caleb stares at it for a while, mentally traces each line in Mollymauk’s palm, the full skin of Molly’s arm without his combat bracers, just as scarred as his chest. Ink, too, tattooed into the lavender skin with unequalled skill, Caleb stares and stares and swallows.   
“I don’t deserve it.” Caleb echoes himself, and Molly shakes his head,   
“Even though I have arguments, this is something that  _ I _ want. Do I deserve this?”   
Caleb’s shocked by his quick-thinking tongue, curling, curveball his problem. He meets Molly’s eyes, reads him like a book, he’s genuine.   
Caleb, tentatively, takes his hand.   
“I don’t want to hurt you, hurt any of you, too.” Caleb’s voice is almost a raspy whisper. Molly smiles, leans closer,   
“I’m fire resistant.”   
Caleb starts crying, half-sobs, half-laughs, he collapses down, buries his face in his arm to hide the mess he’s making. He feels and hears Molly scooch around the table to sit beside him, and he lets go of Caleb’s hand to pull his whole body in.   
“I’m sorry, my love.” Molly sighs, kisses the top of Caleb’s head, rests his cheek over that spot when he’s done. Caleb curls into him, his tears stop fast but his hurt doesn’t. Molly is safe, Molly is warm, Molly is a comforting weight around his shoulders on his head and occasionally he draws back for a moment to kiss at the crown of his head, his temple, anywhere Molly can reach, like his impulse grows and gets too hard to resist. Caleb shifts after a few minutes, less defensive, he shifts his head to Molly’s shoulder instead and lets his arm loop loosely across Molly’s waist, he finds a flash of shirt untucked from Molly’s complex pants and slips his hand in unconsciously. Scarred skin meets his fingertips, Molly’s back arches.    
“Oh.” Says Caleb.   
“Fuck off.” Molly hisses, and Caleb draws his hand back to the band of Molly’ pants instead. There’s a joke, something deeper, hotter, and it plays at both of them like a very attractive free drink but Caleb doesn’t want, not tonight, and for Mollymauk, tonight is all about what Caleb wants.   
(It’s partially about him wanting Caleb, but it all ties in.)   
He feels Caleb’s nose bump his neck as the wizard turns his head to look up at him, a mantra of  _ mine, mine, mine _ begins in Molly’s head.   
Gods, he wants to kiss Caleb so much. It’s an urge, an ache resisted, he restrains himself harder and harder every second. Caleb’s eyes search his, he’s being stripped down, bare.    
“We should go back.” Caleb says, soft, it’s muffled by the shockingly short distance between his lips and Molly’s throat. The tiefling gulps. Caleb’s breath is hot.   
Caleb is struck by a moment of bravery, or stupidity, there’s little in-between.   
He presses his lips to the soft skin, the pulse of Molly’s throat and Molly’s breath catches, turns to flower blossoms in his throat, he sees a map of stars in front of his eyes and flash away the tavern.    
Caleb draws back Molly draws breath,   
“Can I come back to your room?” he asks Caleb, sweet and breathless, his feathers ruffled, he saw infinity when Caleb kissed his throat. What would he see when Caleb kissed him properly?   
(The Platinum Dragon himself, perhaps?)   
Caleb smiles, chuckles a little against Molly’s neck, it’s intoxicating, his head spins.   
“I’m sure that will be fine.” He draws back to reply, Molly hates the distance but loves the man as he stands and offers Molly his hand.

Molly guides Caleb with an arm around his waist, pulls him back toward The Leaky Tap as he casts his eyes from Molly to Frumpkin. On the bed, the cat’s eyes flicker open, and he pads over to Nott’s bed to check on her and curl up over her legs, gentle and warm. The door clicks open, Frumpkin’s head turns, Caleb sees himself for a second. Molly closes the door, carefully, and looks at Frumpkin deliberately, leans over, and kisses Caleb’s neck.   
Frumpkin bristles, Caleb drops the spell and turns, all at once, his hand is at Molly’s jaw and he presses his lips to Molly’s, hard.   
Colour bursts, there’s the copper taste of blood as one of Molly’s fangs pushes too hard against his own flesh, it’s incredible to him and he loves. Loses himself in the darkness void rose-coloured clouds, tint.   
Molly hums into the kiss and settles his hands at Caleb’s waist, he wants to pull, he wants more, he wants all of Caleb.   
He feels Caleb’s teeth at his bottom lip and chuckles, an equal desperation. Molly squeezes Caleb’s hips until he drops back and draws breath.   
“You’re not ready yet.” It’s half a question, half a statement, Caleb shakes his head.   
“I don’t want you to leave.” His hands slip to grasp at the fluffed furled ruffles of Molly’s shirt at his shoulders. Molly laughs, quiet, mostly breath.   
“I’m not going anywhere except your bed.”   
They brush around the corner, Molly tugs off his boots and coat and they collapse together and curl, peppered kisses and adoration.

**Author's Note:**

> its not projecting if its. its.  
> its projecting.  
> look, it's been a long time since i've felt things, seen things as strong and fluid as i have writing for this ship, for this fandom, it's a part of myself I thought I had lost forever and now I have it back, i'm in love with my friend and he doesn't reciprocate, so somehow I have to leak out my feelings onto something public and special because i just want him to understand
> 
> also congrats if you read those notes, we're friends now.  
> I express my trust and friendship in secrets //dab


End file.
